West 116th "reminds me of the old 14th Street…the mixture of old ethnic cultures and mid- to lower-range retail stores," says Nobu Otsu , who moved his five-year-old Harlem wine shop, the Winery, about a block from Frederick Douglass to West 116th about 18 months ago.

For once, global warming and climate change were not to blame, said keynote speaker Masahisa Nakamura, director of the Center for Sustainability and Environment at Shiga University in Otsu, Japan, and chairman of the International Lake Environment Committee Foundation's scientific committee.